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Text about U+02BC ʼ MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE says:
Modifier letters in Unicode generally are considered part of a word, this is preferred when the apostrophe is considered as punctuation that separates letters, rather than a letter in its own right.
Looks like a mistake for me. Shouldn't it be instead:
Modifier letters in Unicode generally are considered part of a word, this is preferred when the apostrophe is considered as a letter in its own right, rather than a punctuation that separates letters.
?
Because U+2019 is actually a punctuation, and U+02BC is actually a part of word (a letter).
However, I'm not a native English speaker, I could miss some hidden sense in the quote above.
Paraphrased (who actually inverted the sense per my opinion), can you confirm my rightness (and your typo)?
Sasha1024 ( talk) 20:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't think it's incorrect, although the wording could no doubt be improved, the article I quoted along with the comments go into some detail for both English and French usage. This comment sums it up quite well:
It does seem to be a slightly contentious area though, and possibly language dependent, so perhaps the wiki should make some mention of that? Paraphrased ( talk) 19:00, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Is it not better to use the standard "'" mark [provided by Wikipedia] throughout this article, rather than the imported "’" mark instead, or am I just “nitpicking” here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.159.172.250 ( talk) 11:54, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
My main complaint is that (at least in my browser) these don't look anything like an apostrophe, as they appear as a blob attached to the last digit of the Unicode value. It seems like any use in text would not look much like an apostrophe either because they would be attached to the previous letter.
One way to make this look better is to add the dotted circle that is often used to show combining characters so at least the glyph is moved into the same column as the others. Spitzak ( talk) 22:15, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
The symbol ‘ (U+2018) is correctly used in proper names such as M‘Culloch and M‘Neill in addition to its use as a beginning single quote. [1] I accordingly edited the entry for U+2018 by adding "or turned comma" in the description of "characters similar to the apostrophe" in the Unicode section. Another editor changed my text to "single turned comma quotation mark". This misses the point that, in contexts like "M‘Culloch", the turned comma is not a quotation mark; it rather indicates the omission of a letter. Is there some unobjectionable way of editing the description to make clear that some uses of the character do not involve quotation? Peter Brown ( talk) 21:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
My edit was just to remove "TURNED COMMA" from the Unicode code point name, as that is not what Unicode calls it. I looked at the referenced document (the pdf attached to the wikipedia page for that code page) and the text "single turned comma quotation mark" was there so I used that. Spitzak ( talk) 17:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC). This is the referenced document from General Punctuation: [ [1]].
1. In the section "Entering apostrophes", I'd like to add a sentence about the (MS Windows) US-International keyboard layout, which provides an easier way to enter a typographic apostrophe than the standard US layout: AltGr + 0. But the importance of such a sentence depends on how widely that layout is used, so this is my question: would that addition be significant here?
I admit it's hard to find a good spot for such a sentence, as it's a Windows-only statement and most of the text talks in general terms. Maybe just before the table? Inside it, on a second row, seems too presumptious.
2. I think the wording of the table's title should be changed to include more English-speaking territory: "How to enter typographic apostrophes on a computer (standard US or UK keyboard layout)" as the same codes apply, at least for macOS and Windows. However, I don't know about Linux, so I haven't changed it yet.-- Geke ( talk) 06:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Why isn't any example given of an apostrophe appearing in a business name created with a plural noun, therefore ending in -s'? -- Backinstadiums ( talk) 19:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
The first sentence of the article starts "The apostrophe (' or ’)..." However, when I copy the second character from inside the brackets into the Wikipedia search field, I get redirected to an article on quotation mark. So is the second character an apostrophe or a single quotation mark? -- Jan Kameníček ( talk) 15:24, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:' (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 10:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Lee's Summit, MO is spelled with an apostrophe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:18B0:7390:A9C2:99F5:A8B1:2E4E ( talk) 02:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Here's another sign, which I like better than the one in the article:
If you also like it better, then please feel free to swap this one into the article. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
While this is commonly done, I'm pretty sure that's grammatically incorrect. I believe it would be more accurate to capitalise the letter (in the case of a vowel) or spell it out (pees and cues). Zombiewizard45 ( talk) 19:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, you're correct that "the neighbours's garden" isn't used, but "the Jones's garden" is. That's standard, and "Sis's unspeakable proclivities" and so on, while "Charles's unfortunate marriage" is still seen sometimes I believe, although not that often. I don't know what the rule is... maybe single syllable words ending in s get the possesive apostrophe... "Les's peculiar friend"... "Baba Ram Das's remarkable self-assurance"... I dunno. But its wrong to imply that this never done. Herostratus ( talk) 22:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@ John Maynard Friedman: It isn't clear from your edit whether The Economist style guide is making a general point, one that would also omit the apostrophe in "Achilles' battle with Hector" or whether it is peculiar to "Achilles' heel". In the latter case, it's doubtful that the matter is sufficiently notable to be mentioned. The lead of the Wikipedia article Achilles' Heel notes that the apostrophe may be omitted, citing the Cambridge Dictionary. Following the dictionary, I think that "Achilles heel" is simply a noun; it need not be decomposed, calling "Achilles" an adjective in this case.
Peter Brown ( talk) 00:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
@ Reywas92: you reverted "Most other possessive pronouns and adjectives ending in s do take an apostrophe" to "All other possessive pronouns ending in s do take an apostrophe" without explanation; your edit summary just points out, correctly, that its can be a contraction of it has. I have changed the text back; please explain why my wording was inappropriate. I noted that his is both a possessive pronoun and a possessive adjective ending in s with no apostrophe. Also, hers, yours and theirs are possessive pronouns (though not adjectives) ending in s with no apostrophe.
Peter Brown ( talk) 20:00, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
There are some who hold that it is correct to use an apostrophe between an abbreviation and s for the plural, e.g. photo's. This does not excuse using one for a contraction, e.g. messrs not messr's. Stub Mandrel ( talk) 19:30, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The section where it talks about "Use in forming some plurals" (or something like that) seems kind of biased...
It's not preferred by most style guides to not use the apostrophe in years (i.e. "1960's), it's wrong to use the apostrophe there, and in any other case (excluding lowercase letters, of course).
The section seems like it was written by someone who had done this mistake and been corrected or something, I don't know. I think the section needs a bit more emphasis on the facts, not what's generally preferred. Plus, you look around the internet, most people write it like this.
I'm still a "rookie editor", so this might be too advanced for me to edit haha, but I just thought I'd let everyone know. SillyBilly3 ( talk) 12:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Reywas92: I noticed that you've undone my work from today three times (twice directly, once by manual editing), while other users (
Rosbif73 and
Peter M. Brown) immediately tried to undo your undoing. You seem insistent that the text added today is removed. However, I agree with Peter's observation (in his edit from today) that you'd made "Extensive deletion of sourced claims. Use the talk page to argue that the sources are not reliable or that they provide insufficient support." So I've restored the sourced claims for now (and added a citation of the second edition of the work in question), and I hope that you'll choose to use the space here for discussion before deleting the new text a fourth time.
BTW the URL you cited while trying to justify the deletion was for a particular style guide, produced locally for use "by staff" and not the public; this guide is not a scholarly work in the league of the broad overview you deleted mention of. On page 1, your style guide makes this explicit: "The style guide is not intended for public or external use, and does not purport to compete with OUP’s professional writing guides and dictionaries." [2]
Separately, please note that the new text under Early English practice is more descriptive in that it identifies a vowel and four consonants of key interest. As you seem to find the text lengthy I've removed one of the two examples. Mebden ( talk) 23:59, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
The same phenomenon in Finnish, that "k" between two similar vowels becomes an apostrophe when inflected, is listed three times: as elision, as a glottal stop, and as miscellaneous use. JIP | Talk 01:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Facts707's exposition is hard to follow. The fact that "one dollar's worth of candy" means "the amount of candy that can be purchased with one dollar" is taken to be an example of "an ordinary possessive use." What's ordinary about it? The longer phrase contains concepts like purchasing that do not appear in the phrase being explained. The latest version by DigitalChutney does not have this problem — the phrase with the apostrophe (the cat's whiskers) is represented as equivalent to a phrase (the whiskers of the cat) with no noun or verb that doesn't appear in the former. Peter Brown ( talk) 03:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
"Exceptions are accounted for in the same way: three months pregnant (in modern usage, one says neither pregnant of three months, nor one month(')s pregnant)."
Surely this whole sentence at the end of "
Time, money, and similar" is incorrect in two respects:
On the question of what to do with this sentence, assuming my first point is correct, I would have to bow to the knowledge of those who know Wikipedia's style better than I. It could just be deleted as irrelevant. Or it could be kept as an example of a common misconception, with an explanation that this is just a plural 's'. BobBriscoe ( talk) 10:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
should we make a section about an apostraphe in math? y'know, the f' (f prime). it represents transformed coordinates, derivatives and more. (this is probably a stupid idea) Jacob851215.64 ( talk) 04:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
In an edit note,
Peter M. Brown wrote that he wanted to add that the use of the typewriter apostrophe and double quote for prime and double prime is common because they are available on standard keyboards; the typographic characters are not, so they're seldom if ever used for prime and double prime
. So first of course that would need a citation, per
WP:OR. Second, anyone writing serious in math notation is most likely to use
TeX,
LaTeX, or equivalent, which supports the prime symbols natively. As the article notes, MsWord etc is very likely to auto-correct 23° 5' 10" to 23° 5’ 10”, which is going to look very amateurish indeed. --
𝕁𝕄𝔽 (
talk)
14:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
So, as this very article points out, calling the 's a possessive case is misleading, since it is indeed the genetive case. And where is this written? In the session which explains that the apostrophe may be used to indicate the... possessive case. I thought it would be as easy as changing the section title, but there are links everywhere to possessive case pages and sections in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia, of course, isn't the arbitrer of right and wrong. But if there are credible references that the use of "possessive case" nomenclature is an error, i.e., if it is not considered a name that is already recognized, it should be changed, and a possessive case section should only point out that it is a misnomer applied to the genitive case. ~victorsouza ( talk) 11:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
The concepts of possessive forms and genitive forms are sometimes conflated, although they are not exactly the same. The genitive form, which does not exist in modern English as a productive inflection outside of pronouns, [...]
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Text about U+02BC ʼ MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE says:
Modifier letters in Unicode generally are considered part of a word, this is preferred when the apostrophe is considered as punctuation that separates letters, rather than a letter in its own right.
Looks like a mistake for me. Shouldn't it be instead:
Modifier letters in Unicode generally are considered part of a word, this is preferred when the apostrophe is considered as a letter in its own right, rather than a punctuation that separates letters.
?
Because U+2019 is actually a punctuation, and U+02BC is actually a part of word (a letter).
However, I'm not a native English speaker, I could miss some hidden sense in the quote above.
Paraphrased (who actually inverted the sense per my opinion), can you confirm my rightness (and your typo)?
Sasha1024 ( talk) 20:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't think it's incorrect, although the wording could no doubt be improved, the article I quoted along with the comments go into some detail for both English and French usage. This comment sums it up quite well:
It does seem to be a slightly contentious area though, and possibly language dependent, so perhaps the wiki should make some mention of that? Paraphrased ( talk) 19:00, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Is it not better to use the standard "'" mark [provided by Wikipedia] throughout this article, rather than the imported "’" mark instead, or am I just “nitpicking” here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.159.172.250 ( talk) 11:54, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
My main complaint is that (at least in my browser) these don't look anything like an apostrophe, as they appear as a blob attached to the last digit of the Unicode value. It seems like any use in text would not look much like an apostrophe either because they would be attached to the previous letter.
One way to make this look better is to add the dotted circle that is often used to show combining characters so at least the glyph is moved into the same column as the others. Spitzak ( talk) 22:15, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
The symbol ‘ (U+2018) is correctly used in proper names such as M‘Culloch and M‘Neill in addition to its use as a beginning single quote. [1] I accordingly edited the entry for U+2018 by adding "or turned comma" in the description of "characters similar to the apostrophe" in the Unicode section. Another editor changed my text to "single turned comma quotation mark". This misses the point that, in contexts like "M‘Culloch", the turned comma is not a quotation mark; it rather indicates the omission of a letter. Is there some unobjectionable way of editing the description to make clear that some uses of the character do not involve quotation? Peter Brown ( talk) 21:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
My edit was just to remove "TURNED COMMA" from the Unicode code point name, as that is not what Unicode calls it. I looked at the referenced document (the pdf attached to the wikipedia page for that code page) and the text "single turned comma quotation mark" was there so I used that. Spitzak ( talk) 17:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC). This is the referenced document from General Punctuation: [ [1]].
1. In the section "Entering apostrophes", I'd like to add a sentence about the (MS Windows) US-International keyboard layout, which provides an easier way to enter a typographic apostrophe than the standard US layout: AltGr + 0. But the importance of such a sentence depends on how widely that layout is used, so this is my question: would that addition be significant here?
I admit it's hard to find a good spot for such a sentence, as it's a Windows-only statement and most of the text talks in general terms. Maybe just before the table? Inside it, on a second row, seems too presumptious.
2. I think the wording of the table's title should be changed to include more English-speaking territory: "How to enter typographic apostrophes on a computer (standard US or UK keyboard layout)" as the same codes apply, at least for macOS and Windows. However, I don't know about Linux, so I haven't changed it yet.-- Geke ( talk) 06:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Why isn't any example given of an apostrophe appearing in a business name created with a plural noun, therefore ending in -s'? -- Backinstadiums ( talk) 19:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
The first sentence of the article starts "The apostrophe (' or ’)..." However, when I copy the second character from inside the brackets into the Wikipedia search field, I get redirected to an article on quotation mark. So is the second character an apostrophe or a single quotation mark? -- Jan Kameníček ( talk) 15:24, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:' (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 10:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Lee's Summit, MO is spelled with an apostrophe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:18B0:7390:A9C2:99F5:A8B1:2E4E ( talk) 02:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Here's another sign, which I like better than the one in the article:
If you also like it better, then please feel free to swap this one into the article. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
While this is commonly done, I'm pretty sure that's grammatically incorrect. I believe it would be more accurate to capitalise the letter (in the case of a vowel) or spell it out (pees and cues). Zombiewizard45 ( talk) 19:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, you're correct that "the neighbours's garden" isn't used, but "the Jones's garden" is. That's standard, and "Sis's unspeakable proclivities" and so on, while "Charles's unfortunate marriage" is still seen sometimes I believe, although not that often. I don't know what the rule is... maybe single syllable words ending in s get the possesive apostrophe... "Les's peculiar friend"... "Baba Ram Das's remarkable self-assurance"... I dunno. But its wrong to imply that this never done. Herostratus ( talk) 22:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
@ John Maynard Friedman: It isn't clear from your edit whether The Economist style guide is making a general point, one that would also omit the apostrophe in "Achilles' battle with Hector" or whether it is peculiar to "Achilles' heel". In the latter case, it's doubtful that the matter is sufficiently notable to be mentioned. The lead of the Wikipedia article Achilles' Heel notes that the apostrophe may be omitted, citing the Cambridge Dictionary. Following the dictionary, I think that "Achilles heel" is simply a noun; it need not be decomposed, calling "Achilles" an adjective in this case.
Peter Brown ( talk) 00:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
@ Reywas92: you reverted "Most other possessive pronouns and adjectives ending in s do take an apostrophe" to "All other possessive pronouns ending in s do take an apostrophe" without explanation; your edit summary just points out, correctly, that its can be a contraction of it has. I have changed the text back; please explain why my wording was inappropriate. I noted that his is both a possessive pronoun and a possessive adjective ending in s with no apostrophe. Also, hers, yours and theirs are possessive pronouns (though not adjectives) ending in s with no apostrophe.
Peter Brown ( talk) 20:00, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
There are some who hold that it is correct to use an apostrophe between an abbreviation and s for the plural, e.g. photo's. This does not excuse using one for a contraction, e.g. messrs not messr's. Stub Mandrel ( talk) 19:30, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The section where it talks about "Use in forming some plurals" (or something like that) seems kind of biased...
It's not preferred by most style guides to not use the apostrophe in years (i.e. "1960's), it's wrong to use the apostrophe there, and in any other case (excluding lowercase letters, of course).
The section seems like it was written by someone who had done this mistake and been corrected or something, I don't know. I think the section needs a bit more emphasis on the facts, not what's generally preferred. Plus, you look around the internet, most people write it like this.
I'm still a "rookie editor", so this might be too advanced for me to edit haha, but I just thought I'd let everyone know. SillyBilly3 ( talk) 12:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Reywas92: I noticed that you've undone my work from today three times (twice directly, once by manual editing), while other users (
Rosbif73 and
Peter M. Brown) immediately tried to undo your undoing. You seem insistent that the text added today is removed. However, I agree with Peter's observation (in his edit from today) that you'd made "Extensive deletion of sourced claims. Use the talk page to argue that the sources are not reliable or that they provide insufficient support." So I've restored the sourced claims for now (and added a citation of the second edition of the work in question), and I hope that you'll choose to use the space here for discussion before deleting the new text a fourth time.
BTW the URL you cited while trying to justify the deletion was for a particular style guide, produced locally for use "by staff" and not the public; this guide is not a scholarly work in the league of the broad overview you deleted mention of. On page 1, your style guide makes this explicit: "The style guide is not intended for public or external use, and does not purport to compete with OUP’s professional writing guides and dictionaries." [2]
Separately, please note that the new text under Early English practice is more descriptive in that it identifies a vowel and four consonants of key interest. As you seem to find the text lengthy I've removed one of the two examples. Mebden ( talk) 23:59, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (
link)
The same phenomenon in Finnish, that "k" between two similar vowels becomes an apostrophe when inflected, is listed three times: as elision, as a glottal stop, and as miscellaneous use. JIP | Talk 01:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
Facts707's exposition is hard to follow. The fact that "one dollar's worth of candy" means "the amount of candy that can be purchased with one dollar" is taken to be an example of "an ordinary possessive use." What's ordinary about it? The longer phrase contains concepts like purchasing that do not appear in the phrase being explained. The latest version by DigitalChutney does not have this problem — the phrase with the apostrophe (the cat's whiskers) is represented as equivalent to a phrase (the whiskers of the cat) with no noun or verb that doesn't appear in the former. Peter Brown ( talk) 03:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
"Exceptions are accounted for in the same way: three months pregnant (in modern usage, one says neither pregnant of three months, nor one month(')s pregnant)."
Surely this whole sentence at the end of "
Time, money, and similar" is incorrect in two respects:
On the question of what to do with this sentence, assuming my first point is correct, I would have to bow to the knowledge of those who know Wikipedia's style better than I. It could just be deleted as irrelevant. Or it could be kept as an example of a common misconception, with an explanation that this is just a plural 's'. BobBriscoe ( talk) 10:40, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
should we make a section about an apostraphe in math? y'know, the f' (f prime). it represents transformed coordinates, derivatives and more. (this is probably a stupid idea) Jacob851215.64 ( talk) 04:17, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
In an edit note,
Peter M. Brown wrote that he wanted to add that the use of the typewriter apostrophe and double quote for prime and double prime is common because they are available on standard keyboards; the typographic characters are not, so they're seldom if ever used for prime and double prime
. So first of course that would need a citation, per
WP:OR. Second, anyone writing serious in math notation is most likely to use
TeX,
LaTeX, or equivalent, which supports the prime symbols natively. As the article notes, MsWord etc is very likely to auto-correct 23° 5' 10" to 23° 5’ 10”, which is going to look very amateurish indeed. --
𝕁𝕄𝔽 (
talk)
14:47, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
So, as this very article points out, calling the 's a possessive case is misleading, since it is indeed the genetive case. And where is this written? In the session which explains that the apostrophe may be used to indicate the... possessive case. I thought it would be as easy as changing the section title, but there are links everywhere to possessive case pages and sections in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia, of course, isn't the arbitrer of right and wrong. But if there are credible references that the use of "possessive case" nomenclature is an error, i.e., if it is not considered a name that is already recognized, it should be changed, and a possessive case section should only point out that it is a misnomer applied to the genitive case. ~victorsouza ( talk) 11:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
The concepts of possessive forms and genitive forms are sometimes conflated, although they are not exactly the same. The genitive form, which does not exist in modern English as a productive inflection outside of pronouns, [...]